Doris Roberts

Actor

• Born: November 4, 1925
• Birthplace: St. Louis, Missouri
• Died: April 17, 2016
• Place of death: Los Angeles, California

Contribution: Doris Roberts was an Emmy-winning actor best known for her portrayal of Marie Barone on the beloved CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.

Background

Doris Roberts was born Doris May Green on November 4, 1925, in St. Louis, Missouri. An only child, she was raised in the New York City borough of the Bronx by her mother, Ann, who ran a stenographic business for the theater industry. Her biological father deserted the family when she was born. Her mother later married Chester Roberts, whose surname she adopted as her own.

Roberts made her stage debut in a kindergarten play. She attended New York City public schools, and after graduating from high school she briefly studied at New York University. She eventually dropped out to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, located in midtown Manhattan.

At the Neighborhood Playhouse Roberts studied under the renowned method-acting teacher Sanford Meisner. She later honed her acting skills under another New York–based method guru, Lee Strasberg, at the Actors Studio, where some of her classmates included such future stars as Marilyn Monroe, Anne Bancroft, and Geraldine Page.

Career

Roberts made her television debut in 1952 with a guest role in a Studio One adaptation of the Charlotte Brontë novel Jane Eyre. She then made her Broadway debut in 1955, playing the streetwalker’s sidekick in a short-lived revival of William Saroyan’s The Time of Your Life. That year Roberts also played the role of Miss Rumple and served as Shirley Booth’s understudy in the hit Broadway comedy The Desk Set (1955–56).

Roberts’s first feature film role came in 1961 with a part in the independent drama Something Wild. This led to small character roles in other films, including Dear Heart (1964), Barefoot in the Park (1967), No Way to Treat a Lady (1968), The Honeymoon Killers (1969), The Heartbreak Kid (1972), and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974).

Throughout the early sixties, Roberts regularly appeared on television, with guest roles on such shows as Way Out (1961), Naked City(1962–63), The Defenders (1962–63), Ben Casey (1963), and The Doctors and the Nurses (1964–65). She also distinguished herself with roles on the Broadway stage, most notably in Neil Simon’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1969–71) and in Terrence McNally’s Bad Habits (1974), the latter of which won her an Outer Critics Circle Award for best actress.

Roberts started earning more substantial work on television in the mid-1970s, upon which she moved to Los Angeles, California. She appeared in the Emmy Award–winning comedy special The Lily Tomlin Comedy Hour in 1975, and followed that with her first regular series role on the hit ABC sitcom Angie (1979–80), as the mother of the title character, played by Donna Pescow.

In 1983 Roberts earned her first career Emmy Award for her portrayal of a homeless woman in an episode of the NBC medical drama series St. Elsewhere. That same year she joined the second-season cast of the NBC detective series Remington Steele, costarring opposite Pierce Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist as secretary Mildred Krebs. Roberts appeared in the last four seasons of the show, receiving an Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actress in 1985. She received additional Emmy nominations for her roles in the series Perfect Strangers and American Playhouse in 1989 and 1991, respectively.

Concurrent with her regular series work, Roberts was often cast in maternal roles in feature films and television movies. Over the years she has played the mother of Marlo Thomas (It Happened One Christmas, 1977), Billy Crystal (Rabbit Test, 1978), Bette Midler (The Rose, 1979), Robby Benson (California Girls, 1984), Chevy Chase (National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, 1989), David Spade (Dickie Roberts, 2003), and Dana Delaney (A Time to Remember, 2003).

Roberts achieved the biggest break of her career in 1996, when she beat out more than a hundred other actors for the role of Ray Romano’s overbearing mother, Marie Barone, on the primetime sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. Debuting on CBS in September of that year, the show, which centers on the daily misadventures of a successful Long Island sportswriter and his dysfunctional family, went on to become a huge success and aired for nine seasons. Roberts received seven consecutive Emmy nominations for her role, winning in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2005.

Following the conclusion of Everybody Loves Raymond, in May 2005, Roberts remained active in film, television, and the stage. She appeared in such big-screen comedies as Grandma’s Boy (2006), Play the Game (2009), Aliens in the Attic (2009), and Madea’s Witness Protection (2012). During this period she also had guest roles on the popular television series Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2007), The Middle (2010–11), Grey’s Anatomy (2011), Desperate Housewives (2012), and Major Crimes (2013). Roberts returned to the stage in 2009, when she joined the cast of the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway play Love, Loss, and What I Wore, written by Nora and Delia Ephron.

Roberts also appeared in a number of made-for-television movies in her later years. She gave several performances that will be released posthumously in 2016. Roberts released her memoir Are You Hungry, Dear? Life, Laughs, and Lasagna, written with Danielle Morton, in 2005.

Impact

During her nine-year run on Everybody Loves Raymond, Roberts, then already a stalwart veteran of stage and screen, became one of the most popular comedic actresses on television. The enormous success of the award-winning series, which won syndication in more than 170 countries, made Roberts and her fellow cast members (Romano, Patricia Heaton, Brad Garrett, and Peter Boyle) widely recognized stars around the world. Instead of resting on her laurels, Roberts continued to work steadily after the show’s conclusion, making frequent film and television appearances well into her eighties, while emerging as an outspoken critic of ageism in Hollywood. She spoke before Congress in 2002 about ageism in Hollywood in and how it is especially difficult for women. She also served as the chair of the Children with AIDS Foundation for a number of years and was very involved in charity.

Personal Life

Roberts was formerly married to lawyer Michael Cannata. The couple divorced in 1962. She and her second husband, writer William Goyen, were married from 1963 until his death from leukemia in 1983. Her son, Michael Cannata Jr., served as her manager.

Doris Roberts passed away in her sleep on April 17, 2015, at home in Los Angeles. She was ninety years old. She was survived by her son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren.

Principal Works

Television

Angie, 1979–80

St. Elsewhere, 1982

Remington Steele, 1983–87

Perfect Strangers, 1989

American Playhouse, 1991

Everybody Loves Raymond, 1996–2005

Film

Something Wild, 1961

The Honeymoon Killers, 1969

Rabbit Test, 1978

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, 1989

A Time to Remember, 2003

Grandma’s Boy, 2006

Madea’s Witness Protection, 2012

Theater

Bad Habits, 1974

Love, Loss, and What I Wore, 2009

Bibliography

Fox, Margalit. "Doris Roberts, Mother on Everybody Loves Raymond, Dies at 90." New York Times. New York Times, 18 Apr. 2016. Web. 2 May 2016.

Martinez, Al. “Doris Roberts Leaves ’Em Laughing, But No One Knows Why.” AARP Blog. AARP, 7 Aug. 2013. Web. 19 Aug. 2013.

Roberts, Doris. “Doris Roberts Loves Post-Raymond Life.” Interview by Matt Webb Mitovich. TV Guide. CBS Interactive, 24 Mar. 2006. Web. 19 Aug. 2013.

Roberts, Doris. “Doris Roberts Still Knows Best.” Interview by Susan King. Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 29 July 2009. Web. 19 Aug. 2013.

Roberts, Doris. “Expo Guest Doris Roberts Has a Simple Message for Chattanooga.” Interview by Barry Courter. Chattanooga Times Free Press [TN]. Chattanooga Publishing, 30 Sept. 2012. Web. 19 Aug. 2013.

Roberts, Doris, and Danielle Morton. Are You Hungry, Dear?: Life, Laughs, and Lasagna. New York: St. Martin’s, 2003. Print.

Smith, Russell, and Alison Singh Gee. “Red Hot Mama.” People 5 June 2000: 69. Print.